City of Alameda – AC Transit ILC
July 20, 2023 Meeting Notes
1. Roll Call/Welcome and Introductions
Attendees: Councilmember Tony Daysog (Chair), Councilmember Tracy Jensen, Director Sarah Syed
Meeting started at 9:03 AM
2. Announcements/Public Comments
None
3. Notes from the Previous ILC Meeting (May 17, 2023)
None
4. Transit Supportive Design Guidelines
Nathan Landau: AC Transit's Multimodal Design Guidelines document was approved in 2018, which provided design recommendations for bicycle facilities at bus stops. We're doing an update now to expand on the previous document to include design guidelines for paratransit service, improvements for passenger comfort and safety at bus stops, and other transit considerations such as layover space and transit lanes. On the topic of pedestrian bulbs at bus stops in particular, we want to be clear that this does not mean we don't want to see pedestrian bulbs; we want to see longer curb extensions that would make crossing distances shorter and also be compatible with transit. We have a pretty robust outreach plan for this effort, including presentations at ILCs, Transportation Commissions, BPACs, and other advisory bodies. We will also have a technical working group consisting of members from local jurisdictions to provide feedback for this effort. We plan to have the final design guidelines completed by Spring 2024.
Director Syed: We could also call the curb extensions "bus-ped bulbs" or some other term that makes it clear that there would actually be more space for pedestrians.
Councilmember Jensen: Are there unique design guidelines/concepts for rapid bus stops?
Nathan Landau: Rapid bus stops represent major stops. At this point the only rapid bus line we have is the San Pablo Rapid, but we may have more rapid service in the future. For major bus stops we're going to want them to have better facilities, which we get into more detail about in our Bus Stop Furniture Guidelines document.
Overall, it's important for major stops on major lines like the 51A to work well for both pedestrians approaching/waiting for the bus and also for bus operations.
Director Syed: You mention completion of the guidelines and adoption by the AC Transit Board - will there be a component of this plan that can be adopted by local jurisdictions?
Nathan Landau: It would be good if the local jurisdictions consider adopting this as well.
Robert del Rosario: Cities have typically not adopted AC Transit documents as a whole, they’ve just adopted portions of our policies into their documents.
Director Syed: Also wanted to acknowledge Nathan's contributions to AC Transit, very devoted public servant.
5. Park Street/Webster Street Commercial Street Program Public Comment (Jay Garfinkle): There are traffic concerns along Park and Webster Streets. Since the pandemic is past us for all intents and purposes, there is no justification for continuing the parklet program. The residents of Alameda want to be surveyed for their preference about the future configuration of Park and Webster Streets. Want to see Park and Webster returned to pre-pandemic conditions. The two-lane configuration causes issues when delivery trucks block the roadway.
Robert Vance: Park and Webster were restriped from 4 lanes to 2 lanes in 2020/2021 as a COVID response to allow space for parklets. The parklet program and restriping has been extended to November 2023. There was direction from Council to put concrete barriers around the parklets for safety reasons. There are some issues because at the beginning of the program it was unknown how many parklets there were going to be. A lot of the bollards that were installed have been damaged. There is also confusion about where parking spots are. The goal of this effort is to improve the aesthetics of commercial corridors, clarify the parking locations, increase parking compliance, limit double parking, and begin implementing bicycle facilities on the corridors (per the ATP). Want to prepare for the parklet program to continue past November 2023. Staff recommended to maintain the parklet program with modifications, maintain two travel lanes for autos and buses, put parking along the edge of the curb, add bike lanes between the parking and travel lanes. Next steps are to continue doing community and business outreach, identify areas for ADA and short-term parking, and develop final striping plans. The goal is to implement in Fall 2023 - striping first, then installing barricades.
Councilmember Jensen: Council also agreed to staff recommendations regarding the concrete barriers, correct?
Robert Vance: Yes we have a standard detail for concrete barriers. Next step is to implement those. There have been delays due to uncertainty about the number and size of parklets.
Councilmember Jensen: With the parklet program modification - will some of the parklets need to be pushed in since they're too far into the street? Robert Vance: Correct, with the new striping some of the parklets will need to be reduced in size to fit into curb lane, otherwise they'd be blocking the bike lane.
Councilmember Jensen: Regarding Mr. Garfinkle's comments, want to be clear that City Council approved these recommendations for the continuation of the parklet program and the reduction to 2 lanes.
Director Syed: Are there plans for the continued closure of Alameda Ave? Robert Vance: We've started having those conversations with the Downtown Alameda Business Association, and yes there are plans to continue the closure of Alameda Ave.
6. AC Transit Ridership and Complaints with Actual Missed Runs Crystal Wang: The attachment in the agenda packet includes a comprehensive route performance summary including ridership, on-time performance, and productivity for the lines operating in Alameda. Ridership has been steady over the past few months, and the productivity for these lines has been mostly consistent with the productivity of similar route types systemwide. Lines 19 and OX don't appear to be as productive over this period. AC Transit's OTP standard is 72% and on-time is defined as between 1 minute early and 5 minutes late, so some of the lines operating in Alameda have been struggling to operate on time. Overall, the hot spots for delay correspond to hot spots for general traffic congestion (e.g., along Park and Webster Streets). Other delays can be attributed to ongoing construction work (e.g., ongoing construction in the Alameda Point area, Caltrans repaving work along Encinal, sewer rehabilitation work along Santa Clara). The top customer complaints we received were for no shows and pass ups, which is reflected in the service operated percentages shown in the attachment, and the biggest cause of missed trips continues to be the workforce shortage. We have service changes going into effect on August 6, including changes to improve service reliability and better match our service levels to operator availability.
Director Syed: Question about detours for construction and other activities - have we ever required the contractors to submit detour plans/traffic control plans? Seems like a requirement that would improve customer experience.
Robert del Rosario: AC Transit can make detour adjustments and notifications on our own platforms; however, there are challenges with getting that information onto other platforms like Google Maps in a timely fashion. Google can put in notifications to alert riders to detours, but sometimes there can be inaccuracies.
Director Syed: Would be great to collaborate more with local jurisdictions on solutions to help mitigate impacts related to construction.
Robert del Rosario: We have a whole team at AC Transit that is dedicated to detour planning. Cities like Alameda have been really good about notifying us on upcoming detours, but oftentimes there are other groups doing construction that we might not get advance notice of.
Councilmember Daysog: Internally maybe we can work with public works staff to make sure AC Transit is alerted about upcoming detours.
7. AC Transit Network Realignment Plan Update
David Berman: Realign includes a review of our routes and schedules to see where and when we should be offering transit service. We're currently in Phase 2 of the project and have developed guiding principles for community and Board feedback.
Our efforts for the coming week are to show all the work that's gone into developing draft guiding principles (assessing transit markets, looking at how people are travelling, geographies for all trips, customer survey, public feedback, Board feedback, etc.). We'll also be holding a technical advisory committee meeting on Monday 7/24/23, including staff from the City of Alameda and other jurisdictions in our service area.
Diann Castleberry: Thank you to the City for helping us get the word out about the survey. Our outreach efforts for Phase 1 of the Realign effort included intercepts at bus stops, participation at many community events and meetings, and pop ups at food distribution sites and farmers markets. We are currently in Phase 2 and invite the City and others to provide feedback on the draft guiding principles. Your input is important to help us shape our future plans. Our project website is actransit.org/realign, which you can visit for more information and also see what upcoming events you can find us at. The AC Transit Board will be having a Realign workshop on 7/26/23 at 5pm. There will also be a community workshop on 8/15/23 at 6pm. The goal is to share what we've gathered in technical and human data, including the survey results and comments received both online and in-person so far.
We're trying to get early engagement from the public.
Director Syed: Question about accessibility of this analysis - what's the timeline for getting all the information in an accessible form on our website? What will we see and when?
Diann Castleberry: By tomorrow 7/21/23, the agenda packet for the 7/26/23 Board workshop will be posted. The guiding principles will be up on the website soon. We are also sharing this information in multiple languages.
Director Syed: Will people be able to sort through the data if they are interested in a specific line?
David Berman: We're striving for that, but the key focus of our guiding principles is that we have some overarching themes and it's important for people to understand how those themes/values will be applied in practice.
Councilmember Jensen: Can you clarify how Alameda staff and/or the Transportation Commission was involved in or contributed to Phase 1 of Realign? David Berman: We appeared at the Transportation Commission, but the first phase was really focused on collecting information through the survey, in-person outreach, and data analysis. As we move into the guiding principles we'll be engaging more with the elected bodies.
Diann Castleberry: We also had AC Transit staff provide updates to the Council and had the District breakfast briefing. City staff helped push out updates about the survey to their networks.
Claudia Burgos: Clarifying point - Phase 1 included developing internal plans; we're not at the phase of developing service plans yet. Also, the City PIO and Alameda Unified really helped us a lot in spreading the word about the survey. We got over 15,000 valid surveys fully complete, with good representation from Alameda.
Councilmember Daysog also helped promote the survey at multiple farmers markets.
Gail Payne: Wanted to reiterate that David and the Realign consultant team are very familiar with the needs of Alameda.
Public Comment (Jay Garfinkle): Question about a survey for Park and Webster Streets
8. Free Bus Pass Program for Seniors and People with Disabilities Update Kat Kaldis: We did an audit of the program since we are one year in. We currently have 627 participants - 80% of them are active riders, 28% have a certified disability, and 10% are between the ages of 18 and 65. We have 5 languages that documents have been translated into, the biggest groups are Chinese and Vietnamese. We also now have a volunteer translator at Mastick to help with Cantonese and Mandarin translation. Since the program began last June, we have over 79,000 rides taken.
Our target is 17,000 rides per month. Right now, the average cost per ride is $1.19.
We also get numerous calls every week from people outside Alameda who want a bus pass. Currently working with AC Transit to set up meetings to help others in Alameda County get set up with a similar program.
Councilmember Jensen: How is this funded?
Kat Kaldis: This is all funded through Measure BB.
Councilmember Jensen: Do you collect data about where they are going? Kat Kaldis: Yes I have line usage data.
Director Syed: Have we been able to incorporate that line usage data into the Realign planning?
Kat Kaldis: Have not been approached by the Realign team, but the line usage data comes to me from AC Transit.
9. New Developments/Transportation Management Association Update Gail Payne: Residents in new developments are required to pay transportation fees, which are then passed to the TMA. As part of the same Measure BB paratransit monies that Kat was referring to, we also work with the Alameda TMA to pass through monies to them to get free bus passes for people with the Alameda Point Collaborative. There are 157 units, and they get free bus passes through the EasyPass program. We are also going through a MOU to continue this program for the next 4 years.
Lucy Gigli: Our members live in the Northern Waterfront (~100 members) and Alameda Point (~550 members). Our main program is the EasyPass that we give out to our members. We've been working to expand the program. Right now we have 174 members with EasyPass, which is about a third of our membership. The most exciting upcoming program is the implementation of BayPass that allows access to all Bay Area transit. It's a pilot program we're expecting to launch in August/September 2023. What that's going to do, especially for Alameda Point members, is allow them to ride both bus and ferry for free. Will have ridership data to present at the next meeting.
10. Bench Installations at Bus Stops
Gail Payne: The past year we've had Trey Hannula working on bench installations at bus stops. Only a third of the bus stops in the City have benches, so we're working to improve that. The City just purchased 25 benches that we're hoping to install by next month.
11. City Project Update: Encinal, Grand, Mecartney/Island, Lincoln/Marshall/Pacific, Central, Clement/Tilden and Otis/SR 61
Gail Payne: Caltrans project to restripe and resurface Encinal has been completed.
Central Avenue is going into construction later this year, looking to take out the buried rail lines that are at Clement and Park intersections, so we may have to close those intersections in a few months. Grand Street just went to City Council on Tuesday, the current project is scheduled for construction in 2024 between Shoreline and Otis Drive. A second project is scheduled for construction in 2025 between Otis and Encinal, and will reconfigure the street and add protected bike lanes. City Council gave approval to staff to continue planning for the entire corridor between Shoreline and Clement with the two-way protected bike facility on the east side of the street. Clement/Tilden plans are almost ready for AC Transit to review. Will include improvements to an existing bus stop on Blanding/Broadway.
Councilmember Jensen: Hopefully everyone got yesterday's email about the Clement/Tilden project website.
12. Next Meetings and Discuss Potential for Hybrid Meetings a. Thursday, October 12, 2023 at 9 a.m.
b. Director Syed may have future conflicts between Alameda ILC meetings and TJPA meetings. Suggesting that we move future ILC meetings to the third Thursdays. May change next meeting from October 12 to October 19.
13. Agenda Planning Requests
14. Announcements/Public Comments
15. Adjournment
Meeting adjourned at 10:20am